Associated Retail Deliveries.
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MHE idea • of "associated retail 1 deliveries " is being put forward in the grocery trade for reducing costs and expediting the stocking of goods. In many districts grocers have co-operative purchasing arrangements, and agents for commercial vehicles might well get into touch with local, grocers' organizations with a view to making suggestions for the joint ownership of motor lorries and vans to be at the service of the individual grocers in the combination.
The same idea is applicable to the laundry, bakery and milk trades. The spectacle of three or four competing retail traders delivering goods to the houses in a street are quite familiar and does not make for efficiency.
Now, if the agent for commercial vehicles in a town would get the local traders together, he could probably persuade them to purchase a larger vehicle on a joint basis and make it part of the associated trades delivery service. Customers would continue to deal with the same grocer, laundry or baker as now; but, instead of three or four vans delivering at the houses in a street, the one vehicle would do all the deliveries in the one street, thus setting the other vehicles free for customers distant from the more congested area. nmpties could be collected, goods brought from the railway depots and business greatly facilitated by such a plan of mutual delivery. Probably the newness of the notion Would make its inauguration a little difficult, but agents in some of the smaller towns should give it reasonable consideration.
After all, business comes when sought. There are rotary clubs in the large towns and traders' associations in he smaller ones which would listen to such an idea if presented as a means for promoting local welfare. The scheme might, or might not, be taken up in a practical way but the agent for commercial motor vehicles would certainly gain something in the way of prestige by advocating such a plan to those interested. This is not the first time that a scheme of co-operation between traders, in so far as their transport requirements are concerned, has been suggested by us, and we think much could be done in this direction.